The series of Ceramic Contemporaries triennial exhibitions which began in 1993 at the V&A museum has now reached its fourth incarnation, and for the second time is opening in the Gulbenkian galleries at the Royal College of Art. The National Association for Ceramics in Higher Education (NACHE) a voluntary body made up from the leaders of advanced level courses in ceramics throughout the UK and the Republic of Ireland, believes these shows of graduate and undergraduate work to be a key element in our purpose to represent the subject in the context of higher education to the wider world. We want to project to as broad an audience as possible the extraordinary variety and range of ceramics produced by students from our member courses, and to celebrate the wit, knowledge, skill, and inventiveness this work brings to the subject.

For this show (Ceramic Contemporaries 4) NACHE has worked in partnership with the Aberystwyth Arts Centre, a body which has itself a close association with historical and contemporary ceramics and has contributed a great deal of professional expertise in bringing together this exhibition and its subsequent tour to the Harley Gallery in Nottinghamshire, the Collins Gallery in Glasgow, Wrexham Arts Centre, and finally at Aberystwyth Arts Centre.

Ceramics is a subject with a long tradition, it is a material with an unique and crucial creative history within human societies that encompasses at one extreme products of simple but vital utility, to objects of great cultural significance, and pervades and enhances our creative experience on many different levels. I believe that the work seen here and in previous Ceramic Contemporaries acknowledges and extends that tradition. Our distinguished and experienced selectors were, as before, given a free hand in their choices and in that sense this show is their show, and will no doubt create debate and even argument both within and beyond our association.

That is our intention.